Posts Tagged ‘Olivia Wilde’

The poster declares the theme of the film to be “knowing when to say when,” which is as good a summation as any, and has just the right amount of vagueness. In this case the “when” applies to, well, I’m not entirely sure — on the surface it’s when to draw the line at casual flirting. Or when to break up with a partner who’s coasting through the relationship. Or when to grow up — a theme that’s driven far too many indie films.

That lack of understanding is probably my fault, but it may also be director Joe Swanberg’s intent. This is the same guy who made Silver Bullets, a film that made me want to abort fully developed children, mainly because it meandered through the running time with no direction, no story, and a mass of sickly dialogue that wanted to sound fresh and spontaneous but came off as fully self-aware.

He tries a similar approach in Drinking Buddies, but it works infinitely better here. The actors improvise their dialogue, with an outline of the major plots points to guide them. I think that works best whenever the characters have an uncomfortable pause, but aside from that there is an easiness to their interactions. Granted, it should be simple for anyone to sell an attraction to Olivia Wilde.

Formula One racing isn’t as popular here in the States as it is in other countries. We have Nascar and that seems to be enough for a lot of people.

However, the new movie Rush, directed by Ron Howard and starring Chris Hemsworth, just might change people’s minds about Formula One. A new trailer for the film is out today and in it we get all the amazing racing action we would expect.

Plus, there’s a lot more of the human drama that chronicles the rivalry between 70’s racing legends James Hunt (Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl). And what a rivaly it was, back in the days when cars were fast, winning was everything and safety was an afterthought.

Also in the film are Olivia Wilde and Alexandra Maria Lara. Look for Rush to arrive on September 27. Look for the trailer, as usual, after the break.

This movie looks kinda interesting. Plus, it has several hot women (and Hugh Jackman for the ladies) in it and that’s usually a good thing, right? Check out the new trailer for Butter after the break.

Meantime, here’s the rather lengthy synopsis:

A tale of competition at its most cut-throat, BUTTER surveys the raw ambition of Laura Pickler (Jennifer Garner), the wife of Bob Pickler (Ty Burrell), Iowa’s long-reigning champion butter carver. For 15 years, Laura has relished her high-profile role as the beautiful, loyal helpmate to her affable, artistically gifted husband. But when Bob is pressured to retire and allow someone else a chance at glory, an indignant Laura decides to enter the competition herself.

She is first in line on sign-up day, only to see her odds of victory fall below 100% with the arrival of an unlikely yet formidable contender: 10-year-old Destiny (Yara Shahidi), the African-American foster child of local couple Julie and Ethan (Alicia Silverstone and Rob Corddry). And that’s not all. Bob’s would-be mistress, bad-girl stripper Brooke (Olivia Wilde) also declares her candidacy, as does his #1 fan, Carol-Ann (Kristen Schaal).

With big name film festivals like Cannes and Sundance often dominating the news, people sometimes forget that there’s a great film festival right here in the heart of the filmmaking community. That’s right, the Los Angeles Film Festival is coming next month and today the fest announced the full lineup of films and shorts showing in competition and having their premieres at the fest.

Among the highlights are Woody Allen’s To Rome With Love, which will open the fest, the world premiere of Alex Kurtzman’s People Like Us, starring Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks and Olivia Wilde, and Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, which will close the festival. For all the scoop on the fest, check out the full press releases after the break.

The Los Angeles Film Festival runs June 14-24 at downtown Los Angeles’ LA Live complex.

Other than being a fairly obnoxious combination of words, Relanxious follows Barrett, played by Wilde, an anxiety-ridden woman who meets and is smitten with George, played by Sudeikis. George is agoraphobic and so their courtship is limited to phone conversations in which they discuss the dates they would go on if their phobias didn’t stand in the way. As the fantasies develop, the two must decide if they can put aside their fears in order to find real-life romance. Larsen plays Barrett’s sister, and Armisen plays George’s friend and only contact with the outside world.

Wilde recently wrapped her work Steve Carell – Jim Carrey comedy Burt Wonderstone. Sudeikis is still appearing on Saturday Night Live and last appeared on the big screen in Horrible Bosses. Larsen will be seen in this month’s 21 Jump Street remake and Sudeikis’ fellow SNL castmember Armisen has been working on his IFC series Portlandia, which just got picked up for a third season.

The film will be produced by Daniel Dubiecki, who recently launched The Allegiance Theater, and Lorene Scafaria, writer/director of the upcoming Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Relanxious will shoot this summer in Chicago.

Probably the best thing you can say about The Change-Up is that it’s not as bad as it looks. Actually, no, the best thing you can say is that there’s a lot of surprising and sweet nudity.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The plot is largely what’s laid out in the trailer: Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds are two friends, one’s married, one’s a swinging bachelor, respectively. One night they get drunk and take a quick squirt in an enchanted fountain while simultaneously declaring their mutual desire to be the other.

Morning comes, and they get their wish. Hi-jinx ensue as Reynolds struggles with the pressures of fatherhood and the big, lawyer-ish-looking account that’s looming, and Bateman rediscovers the downsides of bachelor life. A plot recap is unnecessary because it’s just something on which a string of gags involving baby excretions, pregnant women, masturbation, baby nudity, dancing vegetables, and silly walks to make you grow at least six pairs of hands.

Director David Dobkin (The Wedding Crashers) tries to get a laugh from nearly everything and, for the audience I saw it with, it worked. To the extent that their reaction to film became more interesting than the film itself. At first I was fascinated by the comic beats they ate up and the extent to which they were involved.

It has cowboys. It has aliens. It has cowboys and aliens. It’s not a bad film. It’s not a good film. It is a movie. That’s a pretty lackluster opener, but, walking out of the screening, I felt almost completely neutral about Cowboys and Aliens–it was like the things I liked and the things I disliked were in perfect balance.

The film doesn’t fail to deliver on anything the title promises, and you can lose count of the standard tropes from either genre that it hits, but it’s tough to maintain the toothy grin I expected all throughout. Though I’m getting ahead of myself.

Daniel Craig plays Jake Lonergan (one of many last names I suspect are puns but am not entirely sure), a notorious outlaw who awakes one morning with a heavy case of amnesia and one hell of a bracelet on his left arm. He makes his way to the nearest town, controlled by the gruff cattle rancher Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his uppity son Percy (Paul Dano), whose favorite pastime is terrifying the community at large and in particular the local bartender (Sam Rockwell) and his wife (Ana de la Reguera).

It’s not long before Jake endears himself to the locals, among them the soused preacher (Clancy Brown), the woman with a secret (Olivia Wilde), and, naturally, the sheriff (Keith Carradine) by punching out Percy, and not long after that that his identity is revealed, and he’s locked up. Still less longer, the aliens arrive, capture a handful of significant townsfolk, and everyone’s differences are set aside as they form a posse to recover the abductees. ‘round about this time, Jake discovers that his bracelet is able to sense the aliens and, better yet, can blow ‘em up real good.

Welcome to the first Trailer Tuesdays where you’re sure to find the best highlights from film trailers released theatrically or virally in the past week. Plus, we throw in one trailer that’s so ridiculous that it’s awesome.

This week we found two major summer blockbusters that will hopefully prove to be good, not just cool, as well as one indie horror that will hopefully prove to be as scary as it is original.

This film is a perfect example of a terrible premise with a cheesy title that is executed so well that it might actually turn out to be good. The best quote I’ve heard about this film was when director Jon Favreau was being interviewed about why he chose to do this concept, he replied saying that since lots of people believed that aliens visited ancient cultures such as the Mayans and Egyptians, why can it not be believable that aliens visited the Old West? So as long as he’s sticking by the idea, I’m down.

Certainly the best choices that were made for this film were getting Daniel Craig for the lead and Jon Favreau of Iron Man fame to direct. This combination is certain to bring some real credibility to this film. Craig seems to bring an old-school “bad ass-ness” to this part that has been lacking from most modern westerns.

No one could draw an alien side-arm as cool as him. And Favreau has an uncanny ability to make even the most ridiculous action scenes seem somehow grounded in reality.

Of course you can’t forget Olivia Wilde, who is quickly becoming the hottest female action star; Sam Rockwell, who popped out of nowhere in this newest theatrical trailer but is nothing short of amazing in everything he does; and Harrison Ford, who just goes without saying.

Overall, this trailer is exciting and gets you pumped on some great visuals. Hopefully this will be even better than Iron Man, as well as the coolest graphics of the summer.

Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something interesting. Let’s get started!

I have a caveat. It’s nearly impossible for me to write about Tron Legacy (directed by Joseph Kosinski) without the veil of nostalgia clouding my eyes. I was nine years old when the original Tron came out and a few years later my brother watched it on constant rotation at our house.

I have very fond memories of Tron that are directly tied to my siblings – and I happen to love how the animation looks even after two decades – so it is difficult for me to be objective in regards to it’s predecessor.

We are introduced to Sam Flynn as a young boy. His father, Flynn (played by a digitally re-constructed, be-mulleted, 1982-era Jeff Bridges…more on that later), is tucking him in for the night and telling him about Tron and the digital universe known as The Grid…he tells it kind of like a bed-time story, but it’s much creepier (see Digital Bridges, Uncanny Valley).

Sam’s room is full of Tron video game paraphernalia – action figures, posters, etc. – and when Kevin says goodnight to leave for work, it is apparent that the boy desperately wants more his father’s attention.